White seeks redemption after six months in sin bin

After telling authorities everything he knows about doping, and serving a backdated six-month ban for his sins, cyclist Matt White hopes to be reinstated as a director of Australia's professional road cycling team and be part of in the sport.

A former teammate of Lance Armstrong, White was outed as a doper in October through the US-Anti-Doping Agency's investigation that ultimately led to Armstrong's lifetime ban from and loss of seven Tour de France titles. Admitting his sins, White immediately stood aside from his position as chief sports director of Australia's Orica-GreenEDGE after coaching the Australian men's road team at the London Olympics only three months earlier.

Tainted career: Matthew White during the 14th stage of the Tour of Spain in 2003.Credit:AFP

Unemployed for the past seven months, White told Fairfax Media on Friday night he felt ''relieved'' upon receiving the verdict from the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority's Anti-Doping Rule Violation Panel.

His name will forever be on the national register of doping offenders, and he can never again be part an Australian Olympic team, but White was afforded a reduced penalty due to his with authorities and the pledge he made to assist ASADA with any further investigations. His ban from sport started on October 13 and ended on April 13.

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''It has been a long six months basically waiting for someone to decide your fate and your future. It is a relief that this one box is ticked,'' White said from Spain.

''Within 24 hours of making my statement [about doping] in October, I had been in contact with ASADA and have fully co-operated with them all the way through. Once I'd made my statement I accepted a provisional suspension, and that suspension has now been backdated to when I first agreed to help.''

White said he would jump at the chance to return to Orica-GreenEDGE, the two-year-old team owned by Australian businessman Gerry Ryan. ''With what's happened now, I can go back to work in cycling. Where I work is out of my hands, but obviously in a dream scenario it's at a team that I helped create,'' he said of Orica-GreenEDGE. ''I've got a lot of friends there and I've a lot of passion for that team. More than any other team in the world.

''I've been a part of the darkest era of cycling, and I've also been part of very successful clean teams and I've seen with my own eyes how this sport has changed in the past 15 years. I don't want those athletes to ever have to deal with what I've had to deal with in the last six months, or ever have to deal with the pressures I had to deal with at the time.''

In acknowledging the of White's case with ASADA, Orica-GreenEDGE said it would not discuss his future until considering the findings of a report being conducted for the team by independent anti-doping expert Nicki Vance.

Just what is in the recommendations from the Vance report is expected to be known within a fortnight. ''The report is due shortly and once this has been effectuated, the team will make a comprehensive statement [] Matt White, team policies and the current challenges regarding anti-doping and the future of the sport,'' a statement released by the team said.

Samantha Lane joined The Age in 2005 and has specialised in the coverage of Australian Rules football, cycling, Olympic sports and drugs in sport. A Quill award winner and part of the Fairfax team that won a Walkley award in 2014 for its coverage of the AFL’s doping scandal, Sam has rich multimedia experience. She is part of the Seven network’s Saturday night AFL television coverage and was previously a panellist on network Ten's Before the Game. Sam was The Age’s Olympics reporter for the 2012 London Olympics, and covered the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games for Fairfax. Her work has won awards from the Australian Sports Commission, the Victorian Institute of Sport, the AFL Players Association and the AFL Coaches Association.